The present invention generally relates to apparatuses for issuing and/or reading recording mediums and recording mediums, and more particularly to an apparatus for issuing and/or reading a recording medium which is recorded with digitally coded signals, and to such a recording medium recorded with digitally coded signals.
Digitally coded signals, such as bar codes, are often recorded on recording mediums such as pool tickets used in races such as horse racing, bicycle racing and automobile racing, lottery tickets, and various kinds of cards such as voting cards. A description will be given of an example of a pool ticket which is used in races such as horse racing, bicycle racing and automobile racing, and is recorded with bar codes.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of a pool ticket recorded with bar codes. As shown in FIG. 1, information such as the site of the race, the date and number of the race, the name of the race and the number assigned to the horse, bicycle, automobile or the like are printed on a surface of a pool ticket 100 in characters, numerals and symbols, and the information is also recorded in a bar code region 101 on the ticket surface in the form of digital data, that is, bar codes. Time slots 102 are recorded above and below the bar code region 101 for the purposes of generating a timing signal when reading the data from the pool ticket 100. Bar code data are recorded in a region of the bar code region 101 between the time slots 102.
Normally, the pool ticket 100 is issued from a ticket issuing apparatus which prints data on the pool ticket 100 depending on information input by a customer when making the bet. In addition, the pool ticket 100 is automatically read by a ticket reading apparatus which reads the bar codes printed on the pool ticket 100 when making a pay-off with respect to a winning pool ticket.
However, in most cases, the bar codes recorded on the pool ticket 100 are not multiplexed. For this reason, there were problems in that the ticket reading apparatus will make an erroneous recognition or may not be able to read the data from the pool ticket 100 when a portion of the bar code is stained or missing.